


Keeper of Souls

by hunters_retreat



Series: Keeper of Souls [1]
Category: Dark Angel, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Crossover, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:58:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hunters_retreat/pseuds/hunters_retreat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone learned to keep secrets and Alec was better at it than most. He needed to be after all, he had more to hide. When a raid goes wrong though and he's forced to work with a human, he begins to trust. Derek Reese seems on the up and up and so they make their way through the resistance, fighting for humanity and trying to keep each other alive. But what happens when Derek finds out that Alec isn't part of humanity, but a Transgenic from Cyberdyne’s Manticore facility? What will happen when humanity's last hope for survival rests on a man that isn't human at all?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeper of Souls

 

 

 

The formation was straight, the lines true to form, and X5-494 trotted through the installation with the rest of his unit, head held high and ready for anything that might come at them.  They were just being moved from one facility to another so nothing would happen.  It didn’t mean Manticore expected its soldiers to be any less prepared though.  
  
The gateway they moved through was tall, with crisp clean lines of concrete.  He could see the cameras and the automated guns at the top of the walls surrounded by barbed wire.  They didn’t stop in the open though, their superiors directing them from the front doors, down the many flights of steps, and through the long hallways until each soldier was issued a room of his own.   
  
It was a small privilege and X5-494 was just glad he wasn’t living in the barracks like he used to.  The walls were bare, a dull grey that did nothing for his imagination or his spirits. It wasn’t designed to, so he kept that thought to himself.  
  
The bed was a standard fold up that snapped to the wall.  The door opened on one end, a false window on the other, with a small closet for his clothes beside it.    Just him, his bed, and his own little 10x15 feet bit of space to call home.     
  
He opened the closet and found his things already set up; standard military gear pressed and folded or hung already, his boots shining at the bottom with a gleam that would make the strictest of military minds proud.  He closed the door and took a deep breath, realizing he had no idea what the new routine would be.  He didn’t like the notion, but it wasn’t like they’d been given much more by way of orders than, “Get in the truck for permanent relocation.”  
  
He unsnapped the bed and took a deep breath as he climbed up on it.  His legs dangled over, not quite long enough to sit and still reach the floor.  He disliked the feeling so he pulled his legs up, crossing them over one another and taking up the meditation pose.   
  
He closed his eyes, imagining the forms and motions that he would be able to work on once they were given their training schedule.  X5-494 might not be the biggest, or tallest, or fastest X5 in his unit, but he was always thinking ahead, always planning and plotting and filing away other’s weaknesses for later use.  In his mental exercises, he allowed himself the peace to work different tactics in his head to experiment and learn.  While his fellows were probably napping or doing push ups, X5-494 was honing the one weapon that Manticore preferred they keep a little dull.   
  
Twenty three minutes passed in his head before he heard the doors rattle open and one of the older X-4s came through the hall, ordering them all up to the main courtyard.  X5-494 knew the layout in his head already.  They were all expected to know it after the briefing they’d received in the trucks on the way over.  
  
He came running out into the open and fell into immediate formation with his unit to the back of the other X-5s.  He hated the way they were lined up, the eldest of the X series to the front with the youngest at the back.  It made it harder to see what was happening and he was sure it was done on purpose.  It was a subtle snub, something the officers could give them hell for later when they couldn’t do the moves correctly for the bad presentation.  It was a psychological obstacle that they had no way to overcome and he was well aware of the way they tested them over it.  
  
The rest of his unit and the other groups were preparing for sparring and X5-494 realized that even though they’d been moved, things were going to continue on much they way they had before.   
  
He settled into the routine of sparring, followed by the critique and then the training sessions that were supposed to improve where they’d been in error.  By then it would be dinnertime at the mess hall and back to his cot for lights out.  At least that was the routine.  It was Manticore after all, and he doubted, as exhausted and exciting as the day’s trip had been for the youngest in the X-5 series, that they would let them sleep the whole night through.  
  
   
  
  
He’d learned, years ago when they’d first been transferred, not to question the noises he heard at night.  He’s learned not to go looking for the cause of them.  Not everyone in his unit had been so lucky, no matter that he’d warned them to stay back and stop worrying about something they couldn’t change.      
  
He kept himself focused and pulled his weight, no matter what was asked of him, and each time it became clear that another unit was being called up into duty, he prayed it wasn’t his.  Until the day when there just weren’t enough units left to keep watching.

494 didn’t know how he’d come to be involved in this, but with his ability to keep his head down and gather information from the smallest of comments, he’d found himself not only involved but planning the whole damn thing.   
  
As scary as the idea of living in the world outside of Manticore might be, staying inside Manticore was worse.  Staying inside Cyberdyne’s Manticore facilities was death and none of them had been trained in how to die easy.  
  
He refused to look back though, refused to think of anything but the way out because there was no other option left to them now.  It’d taken them too long to realize what was happening, too long to question orders when the older groups began to disappear. 

He kept his eyes down as the delivery truck made its way through the main courtyard and down to the delivery bay to keep anyone from thinking he cared one way or another about it, but he made his way to the corridors, away from watchful eyes, and then moved quickly to make up the time.  It was simple enough.  Anyone who didn’t make it down there was left behind.  They didn’t have a hope of fighting their way out past the automated guns, let along the metal skeletons that patrolled the grounds.  
  
When he got there, he found that the others had already started without him.  452 and 599 had already knocked the driver unconscious and had him stuffed in the back.  Nine others stood looking to him for the next move.  They all knew what it was they needed to do, but they watched anyway.  Even among Manticore’s elite soldiers, they needed someone else to lead.  494 didn’t say anything, but he pulled a knife from his belt and gritted his teeth as he sliced at his wrist, cutting deep enough to bleed out an ordinary, to get to the tracking device that had been placed in the flesh.  The others did the same and when 494 tossed the transmitter into one of the cleaning bots the others followed his example, looking for other small mechanicals that would move around, giving the computers who monitored their positions the continued impression of movement.  At least for the next fifteen minutes.  
  
599 drove because he looked the most like the driver who’d been taken.  452 sat beside him and 494 in the back, ready to move if need be.  The others were waiting for his signal, crouched down on the floor between boxes.  
  
The gate opened and the others seemed to let out a collective breath.  Not 494.  He tensed even more.  He wasn’t the only one.  “Let’s max this thing out,” 452 said to 599.   
  
599 shook his head.  “We need more distance.  Don’t want them to think I’m running.”  
  
“Calm down,” 494 said.  He looked at her for a second and smiled.  “Max.”  
  
“Max?”   
  
“It fits you.”  
  
She seemed to think about it for a minute, but then she tilted her head slightly and smiled.  “Yeah, I guess it does.  You got a name?”  
  
“494,” he said without thought, his mind focused on the horizon ahead and the death trap they were leaving behind.   
  
“Smart alec,” Max said with a roll of her eyes as she shifted to look over at her unit mate.   
  
“Alec,” 599 said softly.  
  
“Alec.  Yeah,” 494 said slowly.  Alec.  He could be an Alec.  
  
“What about you?  You got a name?”  
  
“Zach.”  
  
494 looked at the other X-5 with curiosity.  “Zach?  Where’d you get Zach?”  
  
“One of the old guards, he told me a story once about a man who refused to tell the mob how to find his son.  He died to protect them.  He died to keep their secret.  His name was Zachariah.”  
  
“Good name,” 494, Alec, said softly, though he disliked it instantly.  There were enough troubles ahead of them without one of them developing a martyr complex.  
  
  
They switched vehicles a couple times when they found the opportunity, never some place conspicuous and always in an out of the way town, hoping it would keep them hidden if anyone did come looking for them.  When they stopped the second time, two of the X-5s got out and stayed with the car, heading in the opposite direction to make a fresh start.  
  
They were never going to find one another again.  There was no idea of solidarity or trying to protect each other by continuing on as a unit.  They were a danger to one another so the best way to escape was to simply disappear.  Each time they stopped the lost a few more until it was only Alec, Max, and Zach.   
  
The three of them continued on until nightfall when they knew they needed to stop and calculate their next move.  The first thing they needed was a place to stay for the night.  The second was money.  As sheltered as they’d been during their training with Manticore, they’d always been prepared to be sent outside the installation’s walls.  It wasn’t until the previous year that they’d discontinued that level of training and kept them strictly on the physical aspects.     
  
Max and Zach took care of a place to stay; breaking in to the back window of a room in a large enough motel that no one would likely notice them.  Alec took care of the cash.  He hated it; hated dirtying himself with stealing but there was nothing else to be done.  He was an accomplished pickpocket and the large mall they’d passed was the perfect place for it.  He picked pockets, took the cash, and left the rest in a bag on the information desk when no one was looking.   
  
It wasn’t enough to survive on for long, but he kept at it until it wasn’t an immediate concern.  Especially if they could manage to steal their way into a new hideaway every night.  
  
Their next target was a superstore and a combination of fast talking and a few fists were enough to get them out the back door with enough supplies to get them going; non-perishable food, clothes, supplies for first aid, and things they could use to defend themselves with.  It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.  It was better than he’d expected since he’d never thought they’d actually get past the gates alive.   
  
It bothered him that Manticore hadn’t sent anyone else out for them but they had to keep moving, had to keep going.  It was part of the reason they’d all separated, the reason Alec was going to head out on his own.  No one wanted to trust each other completely when any of them could have been a spy for Manticore.  The machines weren’t the only way Manticore could come for them.  It rubbed at the back of his head, making him feel raw inside, but there was nothing he could do about that until their hunters arrived.

  
Before dawn break, Alec divided the supplies into thirds and took his.  He had a duffle and a back pack full of supplies, a wallet full of money, and a stolen SUV as he headed out of town without a goodbye.  Clean breaks were the best, especially when he realized he was the one in need of a clean break.  The fact that he’d managed to get the others out meant something, and Zach and Max, who had helped him start planning it all meant something.  Which meant he had to leave while he still could.  They’d understand in the morning when they woke.  
  
Three days later Alec was in the Rocky Mountains making his way deeper and deeper into the unknown.  He listened to the radio as the announcers detailed the most horrific events in the history of man.  They were all grasping at straws, trying to make a connection to what had happened, but no one knew.  All they knew was that nuclear weapons were hurled through the sky, blacking the horizon and killing everyone in their destructive path.  
  
That day was the first.  When the satellites came back online Skynet introduced itself to the world, opening its doors to the survivors.  People fell in line, like lambs to the slaughter, hoping for food or water or medical treatment but when they opened their doors, it was the same all over.  From afar, Alec watched as Cyberdyne’s Manticore installation opened its gates.  There was no mercy as the metal skeletons walked out, the terminators glowing with a sick reflection from the unnatural sky.  Everyone was gunned down, coldly and efficiently.   
  
It was Judgment Day and by dusk, the human race was an endangered species.   
  
  
  
  
  
The world was nothing more than a broken battlefield, lakes and rivers unsafe to tread and only the occasional green dotted the countryside.  Alec knew in his mind that in some other place there was green.  In some other part of the continent there had to be green peeking through the never ending grey of ash but he hadn’t seen it in years.  
  
He’d heard a broadcast earlier, heard the call sign and known that John Connor was still out there, trying to rally the human race into some sort of rebellious mob that would end the terminators and their hold on the world, but Alec didn’t pay much attention to it other than to analyze his tactics.  He wasn’t human.  His own kind had been obliterated, all but a handful, when the humans had taken out Cyberdyne’s Manticore buildings, hoping to stop the machines back in the early days.  They hadn’t known, but it didn’t make Alec any more inclined to help them.  
  
Part of him realized the futility of that train of thought, because without the humans there would be only Alec, and the terminators would be able to find him easily enough.  Still, it all settled uneasily on his shoulders as he looked back at the man to his right.   
  
Devlin gave him a small, tight lipped smile and Alec wasn’t sure what it meant.  The man had been tense for the last couple days.  More so than usual.  The few others with them looked at him with concern but Alec just let it go.  The man had more nerve than anyone Alec had ever met before.  He’d stood by Alec when his barcode had been found out, when the others had tried to toss him out of their gutter community for fear the terminators would be looking for him specifically, and walked away until they’d found their current community.  
  
It was bullshit really, the things people thought about the transgenics.  It was better that crowd than the others though; the ones that thought they’d willingly let themselves be guinea pigs in some lab experiment so the metal could learn how to grow the human flesh that made them indistinguishable from a human to the naked eye.  He’d had a few brushes with that crowd too, before he’d learned about the laser and how to burn off the code for a few weeks.   
  
No one around them knew about Alec now though and he had no intention of telling them.  Not when that meant him getting kicked out of another community for it.  He might not have a great love for humanity, but he didn’t really want to be the only duck in the shooting pond.  Besides, he figured he’d go nuts eventually with just himself to talk to.

  
“It’s time,” Devlin said over his shoulder.   
  
Alec nodded and heard the men and women behind him moving out, getting into position before the metal could know they were there.  The plan was simple.  They’d seen the patrol from afar and there were enough of them to overcome it.  In the cart were a handful of people, the HK-transport obviously fresh out of the pens to look for more of the human population to decimate or to keep in the slave factories.   
  
He was about to leave his secured location to join the others when he saw something gleaming from the other side of the ravine.  He crouched down, knowing if it was a terminator then he was already too late to save the others.  There were a group of men and women though, and he wondered at the likelihood of another pocket of humans in the area.  They had to be human.  Metal didn’t travel in packs when it just took one or two to bring down a whole lot of humans.  
  
He looked back at Devlin and the other man nodded grimly.  He didn’t understand Devlin’s mood because this should have made this part easier, even if the rest got muddled but he let it go as the first of his group began to open fire and he moved into sniper position.   
  
It was easy to pick off the greys from there, and he knew that some of the people he was with weren’t too happy about the way he killed off anyone helping the terminators, claiming they could have no choice, but Alec knew that once broken always broken.  If they were helping now they would again.  He wasn’t about to trust his life with people like that.  
  
He heard a noise behind him and jerked around, stopping last minute as he saw another man coming up beside him.  He looked just as startled as Alec and both held their guns at the ready, neither shooting.   
  
The other guy nodded towards the fight.  “Just here to get rid of some metal.”  
  
Alec lowered his weapon as a sign of trust, knowing he’d be able to get his weapon up quicker if the other man drew on him.  He didn’t, but took position next to Alec, setting his rifle at the ready.  Alec turned back to the men around them and then they were working in tandem, picking off greys and protecting the men and women at the front of it all.  
  
  
  
That night Alec sat along the sidelines watching the rest of the humans as they laughed together, seeking comfort in the small fire was all that they had deemed safe.  They were more alive after a fight, more aware of mortality and the need to prove they lived for something more than just survival’s sake.  Alec wasn’t sure they did, but they did their damnedest to prove otherwise.  
  
He drank whatever was passed around though, raising his glass when they did, taking a little part of their communion.  He watched the darkness through it all, watched and wondered, worried about the ever present sense of danger and his own innate need to walk away from these people, to leave them behind and find a place of solitude where he’d never have to worry about discovery and betrayal.  
  
He looked away from the night and towards the fires when he heard someone approaching.  It was the man from earlier and he took a moment to really look at him.  Before it had been a quick once over, an assessment of threat and nothing more, but now he took his time.  Strong broad shoulders and dark, short cut hair.  His eyes were hard, but not cold the way too many soldiers became, like he cared about his men, would mourn their loss instead of just tallying numbers in the overall battle.  The set of his shoulders said he would continue though, that he wouldn’t buckle under the weight of those dead.  He was a keeper of souls, as X-5493 had once called them, men and women who remembered the fallen and carried on in their name.   
  
“You’re pretty good with a rifle,” the guy said, holding out a travel cup of whatever they were drinking.   
  
Alec took the cup and watched as the other man leaned back against the cavern wall, looking into the darkness the same way Alec had been doing.  
  
“Guess that’s why they give me the big guns,” Alec said, smiling slowly at the quirk of the other’s brow.  He offered his hand and the other man took it slowly.  “Name’s Alec.”  
  
“Derek,” the other man said, looking down at where their hands were joined.  It was old fashioned in a way, but Alec had been raised on human formalities and he respected the other man’s skill with a weapon.  It was a simple way to show it. 

  
“How long have you been planning that raid?”  Alec asked as he sipped from the cup.  It was just coffee and he was glad of it, took comfort from the warmth of the liquid and the rare taste as it slipped over his tongue and down his throat.   
  
He passed it back to Derek who took another drink.  “Just got word of it yesterday so we scrambled as many people out here as we could.  What about you?”  
  
Alec frowned.  Two groups that far out seemed unlikely, but two groups that got word of something like that at about the same time?  It was a coincidence he was unwilling to believe.   
  
“How did you get word?”  
  
“One of our scouts came back with it.  Said he saw the ships flying around and warned us.”  
  
“Same with us,” Alec said.   
  
He knew he had a tendency towards paranoia but Derek’s brow furrowed as well.  “I don’t like this,” he said softly. 

“Got a man on guard?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Your scout?”  
  
Derek cursed.  “Fucking volunteered.”   
  
Alec didn’t wonder where he was going when Derek took off, understanding as he made his own way to where he’d left Devlin to keep an eye over the ridge.  Devlin raised his eyebrows as Alec walked up, his weapon in hand as he looked into the darkness on the other side of the cavern’s walls.  The caves were good for overnight and they had smaller tunnels that gave two other escape points.  The ravine they bordered was easy to watch and the clearing on the other side had few trees to hide incoming soldiers.  Alec felt suddenly exposed though as he looked through the trees.  
  
“Seems like our friends got warning about the same time we did,” Alec told the other man.  
  
“Really?  That seems… suspect,” Devlin said, raising his hand to rub at the back of his neck.  
  
“Yeah, I thought so too.”  
  
“The thing is…”  Devlin said softly.  “They take everything from you, Alec, everything.  But sometimes they can give it back.  Sometimes,” Devlin’s hand caressed the locket he wore around his neck, snapping it open as his eyes caressed the picture of his wife and daughter inside.  “they give you what you thought was lost.  All they wanted was a Transgenic and I found you.”  
  
Alec heard Derek’s shout back among the others and he didn’t hesitate to raise his gun.  The bullet between Devlin’s eyes meant he didn’t live long enough to tell anyone else who he was.  “Get out!”  Alec screamed above the others.  He was back in front of the fire a second later and he knew then it was too late.  One of the HK’s hovered above them and three machines stalked the floor, already littered with bodies.  People were shooting and chaos filled the air because they were all too tired and too far into the drink to think straight.  He damned them for not taking their safety seriously enough because they were all going to die up there, but then the HK shot a canister into the clearing and gas started pouring from it.  
  
He caught sight of Derek, pushing people down through the cave entrance, trying to get them out the tunnels.  Alec followed his direction and began doing the same, knowing he’d have a better chance at escaping notice in the exit tunnels.  The combination of gas and alcohol was making everyone move sluggishly though and there was nothing they could do but hold back the terminators and hope some of them made it out.  He found himself side by side with Derek, defending the mouth of the cave, but the metal wasn’t advancing.  They were biding their time as the gas took its toll.  Derek stumbled and Alec knew what it meant.  “Come on Derek.  Stay with me.”  
  
The other man nodded, gritting his teeth, as they both threw out another volley of bullets.  He could take a terminator out on his own, his strength giving him the ability to break the wiring and cords that ran through the metal body and he knew the right places where the manufacturing left them vulnerable, but he’d never be able to take out three along with an HK and if he did anything like that it would expose himself.  They’d know what he was and they’d take him for experimentation.  He looked at Derek though and realized that it might give the other man time to escape.  
  
“I can…” he started to say, unsure of what he could say that would make sense but Derek wrapped one hand in Alec’s shirt.  
  
“You go out there, I go out there.”  
  
Alec just nodded because he knew what Derek meant just as Derek knew what he’d been thinking.  He stared into Derek’s eyes a little longer, trying to think of their next move but when something from above hit the cavern they were both thrown by the concussion.  Alec felt his head hit stone and then Derek was pulling at him, trying to get him up.   
  
He couldn’t hear the words, but there was fear in Derek’s eyes, not for himself, but for Alec.  He watched as Derek stumbled into him, watched in horrid slow motion as Derek’s hand reached out and yanked a yellow dart from his shoulder.   
  
Before he could say anything else, he was slumping over, unconsciousness taking him.  Alec found himself being carried to the ground under his weight.  There was no escape for him as he felt the edge of blackness taking his sight.  As unconsciousness claimed him too, he wrapped one hand in Derek’s jacket and one in the tags around his neck, holding on with a death grip that even the machines would have trouble breaking.  
  


 

 

 

 

 

The work camp was worse than Alec had thought it would be.  It was one thing to be kept in the Cyberdyne facility where their health and wellbeing had been carefully monitored, but to be left in the general populace with everyone else was completely different.  He’d had an idea of what it would be like and it was true enough, but even with his experience in the world, there was nothing like the smell and oppression that was living in the main cells.  
  
He ran a hand over the new tattoo on his right forearm, suppressing the desire to rip the skin off.  He’d heal quickly enough without it and the tattoo would be gone for good but he couldn’t do that.  They’d know something was wrong and he needed to stay as innocuous as possible to get out of there.  He only a couple more weeks before the barcode on the back of his neck would show clear enough for them to see.  As much as he hated the new barcode on his forearm, hated the way the ink marked him a prisoner, it was nothing to how he felt about the tattoo on his neck.  The one that branded him enslaved for life.     
  
He was let out of his new little cell, something he shared with five other men they’d thrown in at random the night before; Alec shuffling out with them.  The mess hall was well ordered because no one was stupid enough to start trouble under the watchful eyes of the terminators.  The work gangs would make themselves known later, when they were out in the yard, harassing people and trying to get more rations than was their share, bullying others into giving things they had to right to ask for.  Alec didn’t understand any of it because they were all there to die.  It didn’t matter, but to some people it did.  In some ways, he was glad he’d grown up as a soldier because his view of the world wasn’t tainted by the things the humans believed they couldn’t live without.   
  
He stopped thinking like that, because it made him think of Devlin and how he’d been sold out by the one man he’d completely trusted.  That Devlin had been playing him since that first meeting was obvious now.  He’d just been waiting to find a time to pull it off.  Now he was dead and Alec was in a work camp, with no idea how to get out.  He had to though, he couldn’t be another experiment.  His thoughts turned to Max and Zach and their escape when they were still just kids.  He didn’t know where the others were, if they’d managed to stay alive of it they’d died fighting, but he had no intention of dying inside a Cyberdyne facility.  He hadn’t changed that much from the boy he’d once been.  He’d get free again somehow, just like he had back in the beginning.  
  
He got his food and took a seat, quiet and easy, not letting anything else bother him.  He still saw things, saw the way some people handed over their food when they all knew there wasn’t enough to give away, saw the way other things were passed as well and the furtive glances where men and women hoped someone else would step in on their behalf.  
  
Alec almost wished someone would, but it would never be him.  He wouldn’t bring down the wrath of the terminators on himself.  He wouldn’t put himself in a position where they had any reason to examine him further.  He’d rather die than be a part of their experiments.  It was the same sentence after all, only at their hands, in their experiments he’d die a slow and very painful death to help them kill off the rest of humanity.  
  
The rest of the day passed in vague muted horror, Alec never allowing himself to think or feel as he worked the lines.  He didn’t have the heavy labor today and he was grateful for that.  Instead he was shifting through the metal brought in, sorting and feeding it back into the right lines for melting and reprocessing.  
  
It was hard to keep the mind numb for that long a time, hard to keep from thinking about what they were doing there, about how long they’d be there before they ended up in the other work camps, or an extermination camp.  When he lost the ability to stay numb, he focused on details of the camp, always careful to keep away from the awareness of the men and women around him.  He noted troop movements and the number of guards in the different areas.  He noticed the HKs in the upper courtyards and the terminators at the gate walls.  He noticed everything that had to do with their security and nothing of the people surrounding him.  
  
By night fall he was more than ready for his bunk.  He shuffled towards a cell, ready to fall face first into the mattress when he was grabbed by someone and pulled into a different cell.  He wanted to fight off the hands because there was no good in being pulled away like that, but he waited, deciding it was better to fight in the confines of the cell than draw attention to himself.

  
When he was in the cell and face to face with the person who had pulled him aside though, he smiled.  “Derek?”  
  
“Yeah man,” the other soldier said, a small smile gracing his lips as well.  “Saw you as I was grabbing food.  You were already surrounded though and I figured it would be better to make this a more private reunion.”  
  
“I figured they’d sent you off for extermination.”  
  
“I’m hard to kill.” Derek grinned.  “Far as I can tell, they kept most of us from the fight.  A few working on the lines, most of them in labor.  Rumor is they were looking for someone specific in that fight and they haven’t found ‘em.  They’re keeping us all alive until they do.”  
  
He cringed mentally at the news.  Devlin must have sold him out right away then, but without the other man there to pinpoint him they were just waiting for him to show himself.  “Lucky for us.”  
  
“Your guy survive?”  
  
Alec shook his head because he knew what Derek was asking.  “He didn’t survive me entering the fight.”  
  
Derek nodded and he could see the other man taking that in, the news that Alec had gunned down a grey before he’d stepping into the battle.  “Mine either. “  
  
Alec nodded then because he knew that he and Derek were of the same mind.  “So, how long do you plan to enjoy the hospitality here?”   
  
Derek tilted his head to one side and looked at Alec for a minute before saying, “I plan on getting out of here long before the hospitality wears out.”  
  
“Then we have a lot to talk about.”  
  
They didn’t go to sleep until late that night, whispering through the darkness about numbers and metal and gates and plans that would take more time to develop, but that were started nonetheless.  
  
  
  
The cells were freezing at night, the desert around them keeping the heat unbearable during the day and leaving them huddled for warmth as soon as the sun set.  Alec could handle the change in temperature better than ordinaries, but that didn’t mean he liked it any more than they did.  He bitched about it every night in fact and the others had learned to tune him out as they slid into the cell together.  Derek found a few men from his unit in the same area so they were all bunking together now.  It made it easier to talk of getting out, but Derek and Alec still kept the plans to themselves, never quite trusting anyone else with the plan. 

  
Alec settled into his bunk for the night, pulling the too thin blanket close and wishing he had more.  He felt a weight settling on his mattress and felt the press of a body behind him and he already knew who it was.   
  
“Can’t stand more of your bitching tonight,” Derek said as he settled his blanket over the two of them.  Alec turned in the small cot, sitting up on one elbow and Derek was flat on his back looking up at him.  They weren’t the only ones that were huddled together so the others didn’t think twice about it and it gave them the time to talk in private without worrying about what anyone else might overhear.  
  
Alec leaned in until Derek’s lips were almost brushing his ear.  He could hear well enough without the gesture, but Derek didn’t know it.  Plus Derek was warm and there was just something nice about being up against someone else, about being able to relax a little and let someone close.      
  
“I was on rounds today and found out the room above us is a store room.  Nothing in there but rotting clothes and blankets.  Apparently used to be the linen storage when this place was a real prison.”  
  
Alec suppressed the shiver that wanted to run through his body as Derek’s lips brushed the shell of his ear.  He wasn’t human but it didn’t mean he didn’t have similar needs.  Being so close to Derek the last few nights as they tried to make concrete plans for their escape was doing things to his libido that he didn’t have time for just yet.   
  
Alec nodded.  “Makes it a straight shot,” he said, moving so that his lips were almost pressed against Derek’s neck just behind his ear.  “If we can get up there we can get into the duct system and up the walls.”  
  
“Then we just need a way to get over the walls.”  
  
“Time it with the HK-transports?  They leave at fairly regular intervals.”  
  
“Think you can time it that well?”  
  
Alec drew back and looked down at Derek.  “Yeah.”  
  
“You sure you’re that good?”  
  
There was something else in Derek’s eyes then and Alec recognized it immediately.  He smiled widely.  “You have no idea how good I can be.”  
  
Derek smiled back at him.  “Guess we’ll find out.”  
  
Alec turned over then, feeling Derek pull his body back towards him, spooning up behind him.  He was still smiling and couldn’t help but think that if they ever got out of there alive, Derek might be fun to have around.  
  
  
  
  
They could hear the noise from where they were and Alec cringed at that.  There hadn’t been a choice though.  They needed a diversion to keep the terminators in the main area instead of turning their attention to the outer areas.  It hadn’t been hard to start a fight between the two largest work gangs in the common area and they’d slipped away before it became the all out brawl it currently was.  Alec was just worried about getting them all away in case it turned into something more.  Like a massacre.  He wasn’t sure how the others would react to that and Alec knew this was the last chance for him.  His bar code was burning under his skin and it wouldn’t be long before it would show.   
  
The access tunnels had been added at some point after the initial construction of the building and Alec thought they were a place for snipers and prison guards, but there was no way of knowing for certain.  It was enough that they were there, a straight shot up to the roof if they were able to climb up the access rungs quick enough.  One of the men below him lost his grip and started to fall backwards but the others pushed him back in place.  
  
He made it to the top and waited for the others to stop moving.  Other than Derek, Alec didn’t know the other men, hadn’t bothered to even learn their names.  He looked at Derek who was right behind him and worried about him as he waited.  Keeper of the souls.  He didn’t want to know what Derek though of the massacre they were leaving behind.    Alec pushed the thought away as Derek moved up against him, pressing as close as he could get as they started to work the cover off the top of the access tunnel.    
  
As soon as it was off, Alec was out and running.  They didn’t have weapons but the machines would know that immediately.  It was one of the only good things about fighting the machines.  They were programmed for specific parameters.  HK’s didn’t fight inside the compound.  They’d call for one of the cyborgs to come round them up.  Alec just had to make sure they got the thing reprogrammed before that happened.  
  
The others didn’t waste any time, hauling up what supplies they’d managed to secure up onto the roof.  Alec made it to the HK, keeping a few steps ahead of Derek and never more.  If it was getting too risky he’d speed things up, but the plan was sound and he should be able to get this done without any interruptions.  
  
Alec dropped to his knees in front of the panel he needed and Derek was beside him, dropping tools to the ground and pressing his fingers into the panel’s edge to rip it open.  Alec worked on reprogramming the HK’s outbound destination and its mission while Derek was working to control its guns.   
  
The other men followed behind them, working to get the doors open on the HK transport.  They were made to keep people in, not out, but it wasn’t as easy as turning a knob.   
  
He heard them get inside, the muffled voices and frantic steps of men trying to get in place when they knew they were superfluous and weren’t needed anymore.  Alec wasn’t cold enough to leave them behind but he could understand why the men were worried. 

“Got it,” Derek said beside him.  The guns were on manual.  The HK couldn’t trigger them on its own so unless Derek got out and programmed a target, the weapons were useless.   
  
“Come on, Alec.”   
  
Derek’s voice was low in his ear, the other man standing watch over him.  There was no sign of the machines yet, but it wouldn’t be long, even with a riot going on in the main cell block.  He worked a little faster than normal to get the last of it done.  “Time to fly,” Alec said as they ran to the door where the others were waiting.  They barely had it closed when the transport lifted off the roof.   
  
Alec was thrown across the pen area and Derek grabbed his arm, steadying him as they both fell into the wall together. 

“Get down!” Derek yelled, already pulling Alec down with him at the sound of weapons fire.   
  
He felt the transport shift violently and knew it’d been hit.  It righted itself though and Alec looked up at Derek.

“Don’t know if it will get us where we’re going or not.”  
  
Alec nodded.  “So long as it gets us a little further, we should be okay.”

Derek nodded but they were both tense.  The others stayed huddled to one side of the transport, waiting for the next move.  They were only in the air another 20 minutes before Derek spoke up.  “We’re too low.”  
  
“Yeah.”  Alec smirked.  “I noticed.  Looks like we’ll be getting off a little early.”  
  
“Perfect.  I always like my escapes to come with lots of blood loss.”  
  
Alec smiled as they moved to the front, looking through the gates to see where they were going.  
  
“We aren’t too far off the mark,” Derek said, loud enough for the others to hear as well.  They all moved forward then.  
  
“If we can get up into the hills we can lose anything that might try coming after us.  We can head east.  I know some people in that area,” one of the other men said.  Alec didn’t say anything.   He had no intentions to stay with them.  
  
The transport dipped lower again, knocking them all from their feet.  It dipped low enough to hit the ground and the whole thing shuddered with the impact.  The transport went careening across the dirt, flipping end on end.  Alec tumbled across the floor until it was no longer the bottom and kept wheeling with it.  He felt his leg impact hard against the bars and barely managed to muffle a cry before they were all thrown forward, into the ceiling of the transport.   
  
Everything was quiet for a second before he heard the other men moving.  They were all beat up but none of them seemed to have more than a limp or superficial scratches.   
  
“Let’s move it!”  
  
Alec followed behind the others, waiting as four of them pushed against the damaged door until it finally broke free.  They each grabbed what they could of the supplies and moved away from the transport towards the hills that had been mentioned before.  
  
“Alec, you’re hurt,” Derek came up beside him, obviously ready to stop and take care of the wound but Alec couldn’t let him.  He could limp as far as he needed today but if he let the other man see it he’d know how fast Alec healed when he went to check it later.   
  
“I’m fine,” Alec said, wrapping an arm over his shoulder.  “Just give me a little support and we’ll be good.  Think I twisted it.  You can have a look when we stop tonight.”  
  
Derek frowned but nodded as he shouldered Alec’s supplies and wrapped his arm around Alec’s waist to help him.  The other men were ahead of them already, but Alec didn’t care and Derek didn’t seem to either.  
  
“They’re planning something,” Derek leaned closer to whisper as they walked.  
  
Alec hadn’t noticed, but then he’d been letting Derek take care of the other men without paying much attention to it.  He cringed at the lack of awareness, knowing he should never be so far out of the loop that he wasn’t aware, but he’d come to trust Derek that much.  He wasn’t sure if he should run from that or embrace it.  Devlin should have taught him better than that, but he still couldn’t help but think that the next few hours would settle that for him.  
  
“Any idea what?”  
  
Derek shrugged.  “They were too worried about getting left behind.  Guilty of thinking about it themselves if you ask me, leaving us stranded somewhere, without rations maybe.”  
  
Alec nodded.  “I’m up for a fight if I need to be, Derek.”  
  
Derek sighed.  “Aren’t we always?”  
  
  
  
They travelled for a few hours and even Alec’s sensitive hearing didn’t detect anyone coming.  They made good time and Alec’s leg began to heal well enough to stop leaning on Derek so much.  He didn’t stop completely since they were able to keep up as they were and it was a good excuse to talk softly to the other man without the others noticing.   
  
It wasn’t until late afternoon that he started to sense trouble; Derek’s back was up, too.  The other guys rounded a large outcropping and Derek looked at him.  Alec nodded, pulling away because he could hear them scuffling to get into position.  He didn’t know how Derek knew, but the other man seemed to read people pretty well.  Maybe it was that, or maybe it was just how obvious a place like that could hide the attack, but whatever it was, Derek was damn good.  
  
Derek took the corner first and he was immediately attacked by one of the men.  Alec was about to help him when another came jumping at him, taking them both to the ground.  He hit his knee hard as he went down, but he rolled with it, limping again as he tried to gain his feet.  He spared a glance around because there were two other men but Alec could see one man on the floor already, and two of the attackers were circling Derek.  
  
Alec drew his full attention back to his own fight then and the guy began to slowly circle him.  Alec smiled because he could tell the guy didn’t have much training, just a lot of muscle and no idea how to use it.  He took a swing at Alec and he dodged easily, coming up with a shot to the kidneys and landing a few more to end it quickly.  
  
He looked over at Derek in time to see one man going down and Derek’s fist ramming into the other’s jaw.  The guy stumbled and Derek didn’t give him time to think, didn’t give him time to recover, but kept going, another blow to the cheek and then one on the nose and the guy was down.  Clean and efficient, someone who’d learned to fight the hard way, who’d learned to fight to survive.

  
“Somehow I don’t think it was a fair fight.”  
  
Derek turned to look at Alec and smiled.  “Next time you can take down three and I’ll just handle one.  Wouldn’t want you to twist your knee anymore after all.”  
  
Alec laughed because his knee was fine, except for being a little sore from the tumble.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”  He looked back at the other men.  “What do you think we should do with them?”  
  
“Leave them.  They’re scared and were just afraid we’d take them out when we had the chance.”  
  
“Just like that?  No punishment?”  
  
Derek grabbed one of their bags of supplies and pulled it over his shoulder.  “There.  They’ll just be a little hungrier when they get where they’re going.”  
  
“So, guess that means it’s just you and me.”  
  
Derek nodded.  “Wasn’t that the plan?”  
  
They hadn’t talked about it, but he figured it had probably been in his mind all along if Derek had been willing to leave the others.  “Let’s get going.  We can still put some space between us and them before night fall.”  
  
“Your knee gonna hold up?”  
  
“Yeah.  It’s good now.  A little sore, but I can handle it.”  
  
“You’re just trying to set yourself up for a rub down later, aren’t you?”        
  
Alec took one of the bags of supplies from Derek and slung it over his shoulder before he started to walk in the other direction the men had been leading them.  “Maybe.  Would you say no?”  
  
Derek let him get a few steps ahead of him and when Alec turned to look, Derek was watching him with a crooked smile.  He looked Alec over before finally making eye contact.  There was something mischievous in his eyes and Alec returned the grin.  “No, I think you’ll get your rub down tonight, Alec.”   
  
  
  
They travelled further into the night than either man liked, but there was no place for cover and both wanted a fire.  When they finally stopped it was a long abandoned truck stop at the side of a ruined road.  There was wood enough for a small fire and the roof was still intact even if the windows had long been lost.  They set a small fire in the center of the floor where others had done so before.  Nothing remained of use, but that in itself was a comfort.  No one would be coming to reclaim anything of theirs.     
  
Alec sat down against the wall, watching Derek as he looked out into the darkness around them again.  He didn’t say anything but pulled open his supply pack and took out enough food for the both of them along with their water. Alec couldn’t help but smile slightly at the other man’s protective nature; walking a small perimeter to be sure they were safe.  When he sat down, Alec just smiled and handed Derek his share of their rations.   
  
It wasn’t much, but they ate in companionable silence.  There was nothing close, no people, no metal, just the two of them.  Alec could almost wish it were true.  The fire started to die down and Alec threw a bit more wood on it to keep it going.  He watched Derek pull the blankets from all three supply bags and he was more than happy to see him piling them all up together.  
  
He took a seat next to the other soldier and Derek nodded and he looked over at his leg.  “You gonna let me take a look at that now?”  
  
“Time for my rub down?”  
  
“Not unless you let me see your leg.  For real, Alec.”   
  
Alec sighed.  “Yeah, alright, but I told you I just twisted it or something.  It’s fine now.”  
  
Derek got up from his seat and settled between Alec’s legs, the bad knee stretched out straight and the other bent.  Derek ignored the position and let his hands roam over Alec’s leg, looking for signs of blood on his pants.  When he didn’t find any, he began working his fingers into tired muscle.  Alec didn’t try to stop the moan that worked its way out as Derek dug into too tight flesh.  
  
“Hurts?”  
  
Alec let his head fall back against the wall and shook it slightly.  “No, feels good actually. The muscle is tightening up.”  
  
“Damn, and here I thought all that talk of a rub down was just a line.”  
  
Alec laughed as Derek’s hands continued to work on the flesh around his knee, warming and soothing the ache.  He wanted to make some flippant comeback but nothing came to him.  He was having a hard time focusing on anything other than Derek’s hands.   
  
His hands moved higher than necessary and when Alec opened his eyes and looked, there was open heat on Derek’s face.  He didn’t think about it, just wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and pulled him in, pressing their lips together in a hungry kiss.

Derek pressed forward, adding his own desperation to it and then there was nothing but the pull of clothes over head and Derek pushing him back onto the coarse blankets, naked and wanting.  
  
There was nothing soft or tender between them, no lingering moment or gentling of their bodies.  He felt the burn as Derek pushed into his body and he took a deep breath, using his hands to pull Derek even closer.  He wanted the burn, wanted to feel alive and free and everything there was to feel under the other soldier at that moment.  
  
Derek’s lips crushed into his again, needy kisses that gave way to stinging bites and bruises sucked into his skin.  Alec’s hands dug into Derek’s back and arms, marking him as well with fingerprints and a trail of scratches that spoke his need better than any words.  
  
When Derek wrapped his hand around Alec’s cock, it was quickly over, callused fingers stroking him with confidence, and it’d been too long since he’d taken a lover.  His body clenched around Derek as he came over his fingers and then Derek’s eyes were closing, his body pushing forward for a few brutal thrusts before he spilled inside Alec.  
  
Alec watched as Derek pulled away then, watched him distance himself physically so he could do so otherwise and he was glad for it.  As much as he’d already come to trust Derek, as much as he liked his company, he had to remember what happened when he trusted too much.  Devlin hadn’t been the first to betray his trust and if he wasn’t careful he wouldn’t be the last.  As much as he wanted to trust Derek, to tell him the truth of who he was, he didn’t think he’d ever be ready to tell that much again.   
  
Derek started pulling his clothes back on and Alec did the same.  Practicality demanded it, even if it would have been nice to be able to linger there naked.  He would have liked to have watched Derek looking at him, remembering what they’d done and where the marks on his body have come from.    Apart from their escape though bruises pressed into his skin disappeared too quickly and Alec hadn’t survived so long by allowing his fantasies to overcome his judgment.  
  
When he settled back into the blankets again Derek added more wood to their fire, though Alec thought it was more to give himself time than anything else.  When he seemed happy with the fire, he sighed loudly before coming around to the other side with Alec.  Derek settled behind him in the blankets and Alec felt him hesitate only a second before he dropped his arm around Alec’s waist, pulling him as close as he had those nights in the cell.  
  
It was different now, the quiet that lay between them, but he felt it when Derek’s body relaxed against his, when his mind finally accepted what they’d done, and Derek’s lips pressed into the space Alec’s barcode would normally show.  
  
Alec closed his eyes and sighed softly.  Sated and warm, he let himself fall into the blackness of sleep, waiting for whatever the next day would throw at them.  
  
  
  
  
It didn’t take long to find themselves back among people.  It became more dangerous as they did and Alec had to suppress more than one thought about taking Derek up into the hills and hiding out forever.  As much as Alec and Derek got along though, Derek would never abandon his people.  Alec was well enough aware of his own needs that he kept close to Derek and let the others bounce off his periphery.   
  
The people they found were a part of John Connor’s resistance and Derek Reese was known by name if not by face so people looked up to him, trusted his word.  When he offered to take them deeper into resistance territory, they all agreed.   
  
They travelled to three different gutter communities on their way and each time Alec felt time ticking in the back of his head.  He’d found a small laser with the first community and had been able to keep his tattoo hidden but it hadn’t been one of the larger machines and he knew it had only given him a few more days.  
  
He understood the security issues though and as they moved deeper and deeper into the resistance ranks, their numbers began to dwindle, people finding a community they felt they could be safe in.  It was only a handful that made it to the large compound that Derek had been aiming for all along.  
  
  
It took two days for Alec and Derek to debrief and be given a free pass in the compound and four days for Alec to find another laser and get the time to use it without interruptions.  He breathed a little easier then, found himself relaxing more into Derek’s touch when he didn’t have the fear of exposure hanging over his head.  
  
Alec could feel the growing restlessness in his partner though, could tell that Derek was anxious to get back into the fight.  He’d come looking for John Connor and the man wasn’t there.  Alec was still amused that Derek actually knew the man, that he was planning on introducing Alec to the man behind the radio transmissions he’d once studied but he kept that to himself.  Besides not being able to find John, something about the compound made Derek’s hackles rise and the last thing he wanted to be was an outlet for Derek’s anger.  He could handle his restless energy, enjoyed taking his partner’s aggression and finding small hidden corners to work it off with him, but anger was another creature entirely.   
  
  
When news of the Great John Connor reached them, it came with two soldiers looking for Derek.  John had apparently learned of Derek’s return as soon as he arrived and while Alec was interested in meeting the human’s messiah, he knew it wasn’t the time and place.  He’d trailed behind Derek, staying in the circle of men and women that always wanted to get a look at the man, watched with a twinge of jealousy as John’s face broke into a rare smile as Derek’s arms embraced him with a hard thump to the back.   
  
Derek was pulled away by John, but he stopped to look back at Alec, making John track his eyes as well.  Alec just nodded his greeting from across the way before John pulled Derek back with him through the walkways.  
  
Alec disappeared into the men and women, doing what he could to kill the time, talking to this person or that, helping arrange barters for what people needed and figuring out how to get it.  When it got late enough, he found the bunk that he and Derek had called home for the past few weeks.  He would have slipped in some time with the laser earlier but he’d found someone working with it as he’d gone in.  He was pushing it and he knew it, but the last couple weeks had been busy and normally the laser was only available at night.  Not only was it almost impossible to sneak out of Derek’s arms at night, Alec found himself not wanting to. 

  
He wasn’t sure if it was self-sabotage, self-destruction, or simple stupidity, but he didn’t want to leave his lover’s arms unless he had to.  He could almost feel the ink on the back of his neck though, itching to break through his skin.  Tonight he had to go.   
  
  
  
He was meditating on his bunk, legs pulled up under him, working forms in his head when he felt the air around him shift.  He never knew how Derek had managed to move as quietly as he did but he smiled as he looked up at the other man.  Derek’s face was grim though.  
  
“We have a mission.”  
  
Alec nodded, not bothering to question Derek about how he knew Alec would go with him.  As much as Alec still felt this was a human fight, he’d never walk away from Derek willingly, not unless something drastic happened.   
  
“When do we leave?”  
  
“Now.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The gun was pointed at Alec before he could get out of the way and for once he knew he didn’t have the choice of using his speed against the other man.     
  
“What the fuck?  Nothing human can take that kind of hit!”   
  
Derek was looking at Alec like he’d sprung two heads.  No, worse, like he’d ripped his outer skin and found metal beneath it.  “Derek… it isn’t what you think.  You know me.”  
  
“I thought I did.”  
  
“I’m not metal damn it!”  
  
The other man’s voice went soft as he glared at him. “Then tell me how the hell you’re not in pieces right now, Alec.”  
  
Alec knew he was in deep shit then.   When Derek Reese was screaming you were fine.  When he got that quiet voice, it meant he was about to do something that would hurt himself, something that would be for his brother’s good, or for John Connor’s good, or for the resistance’s good, but that would send him personally reeling.  Like killing his lover.  
  
He closed his eyes.  “Can I turn around?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I need to show you something to explain it.”  
  
“Yeah, okay.”  
  
He turned slowly, knowing that the wrong move would put a bullet in his brain.  He’d never been more terrified in his life than he was then.  He trusted Derek but since their first night together he’d never thought twice about showing his barcode.  Derek would know what it meant, both the ink on his skin and the fact that he’d been distant since they’d started this mission for John.  He’d understand why Alec hadn’t let Derek close enough to his neck to find the damn thing.  He took a deep breath as he pulled the collar of his shirt down at the neck, offering Derek a good look at his barcode.  
  
“No.  That wasn’t there before.”  
  
“There’s a way to remove it, temporarily.  I told you I needed to get to the base.  They have a laser I’ve been using to get rid of it.”  
  
“No, they’re all extinct.  Skynet killed all the transgenics that ran loose.”  
  
“Mostly.  We’re endangered to say the least, but then so is the rest of humanity.”  
  
“The metal cleared out all the transgenics, used them to figure out how to grow all that pretty flesh they use to cover themselves up with.”  
  
“Some of us managed to hide.”

“No, that can’t be… you can’t be…”  
  
“No one else knows.  I haven’t told anyone.”  
  
“Why not?”  
  
“I’d have told you before anyone else and… I’ve made mistakes before.”   
  
He could hear the conviction in Derek’s words, knew that he’d worked it all out in his head.  “Your guy, your scout, he knew?”   
  
Alec wasn’t sure he could handle turning around to see the look on Derek’s face.  They’d all been kept alive in the work camp while they tried to ferret out which one of them was the transgenic.  They’d been kept alive because of him, but they’d never have been in danger if Devlin hadn’t sold them all out first.     
  
“He told them about me, set up the attack, but I didn’t give him the chance to point me out to them.”  They’d all been captured because Alec hadn’t been strong enough to walk away when someone had kept his secret.  Now Alec had a bar code put on his arm by the machines and a lover that couldn’t trust him, that he couldn’t trust completely either.   
  
“Pity.”  
  
He didn’t know what Derek meant by that.  Pity that he hadn’t gotten Alec killed?  Or was that sarcasm over Devlin’s death?  He wasn’t sure but there was something in Derek’s voice made him ache.  It didn’t matter that he was terrified of what was in the other man’s eyes, he had to see it.     He turned to face him and he could see the faith in Derek’s eyes.  None of the rest of it mattered because Derek believed him, and when he took a step forward Derek’s gun hand was moving towards him, wrapping around the back of his head, the metal of his gun pulling Alec into him.  Their teeth clashed and blood and bruises formed and swelled between them but neither cared.  They were still alive.  The whole fucking human race was about to be extinct, but they were still there.  The barcode at the back of his neck was just another barcode and who the hell didn’t have enough ink anymore to last a life time?  
  
“We have to get out of here,” Alec said as they finally parted.  
  
“Yeah, we have a rendezvous to keep.”  
  
“Derek, the others…”  
  
Derek looked Alec in the eye, staring for something Alec wasn’t sure he had to give, but everything he was he put there for him to see.  “I won’t tell the others, Alec, but John Connor isn’t just anyone.”  
  
Alec closed his eyes and nodded because it was better than he could have hoped but exactly what he figured Derek would give him. “You’ll let me explain?”  
  
“Yeah,” Derek said as he checked his weapon before looking out the hole in the wall to make sure they were still in the clear.

“But it won’t be what you think, Alec.  John makes plans for a lot of things.  Finding you might make a difference.”  
  
He didn’t understand the cryptic words, but he knew Derek was offering comfort and he took it for what it was.  He found his own rifle among the debris of their fight with the terminator and then he followed Derek out, unsure of his future, but hoping his trust this time was well founded.  
  
  
  
The raid turned out to have the information John had been looking for and Derek was running the men into the ground to get it back to him in time.  Alec saw Derek look at him from time to time and he knew what was in the other man’s head.  Alec could get it to John faster, only there was no way to get it to him without telling the other man about him, no way that John would accept the information without questions that would make Alec suspect as soon as he arrived, giving him little chance to actually meet John Connor and explain who he was.  They were making good time though and Alec had already decided if it looked like they were in trouble, he’d make the offer.  He owed Derek that much and this was important.  If Derek’s few words meant anything, and they always did, then the information was something that just might end the war.  
  
It took them three days of hard travel to get to the bunker and only ten minutes before Derek and Alec were taken away from the other men and into the main section of the facility.  It wasn’t much, just a series of tunnels and subways that had been tunneled even further to connect to natural caves around them, but it’s been outfitted for human life and it gave them something to fight for, something to call home.  
  
Alec let Derek lead the way, staying a step behind him and just to the side, ready to draw his weapon should anything decide to give them a try.  He was more agitated as they were taken deeper in and it wasn’t until Derek looked back, a smirk on his lips, that he realized Derek was amused by it.  He took a deep breath to calm the nervous energy and focused it into the details as he’d been trained.  
  
When they were finally let into the room Alec stopped, watching as Derek moved forward, clasping John Connor on the back and whispering something in his ear that Alec didn’t allow himself to listen to.  Self-preservation demanded he listen in, but he had to trust Derek, have to give the man the chance to prove himself or he was never going to trust him.   
  
Derek handed John the information they’d been sent for and John took a seat at the desk behind them, plugging it into his computer to see what it was.  Derek nodded for Alec to join them and then he was looking over the other man’s shoulder at the computer screen.  
  
“Manticore,” he breathed the word out without meaning to.  
  
Derek pulled away to look at him and John Connor turned his eyes to him as well.  
  
“You know about Manticore?”    
  
Alec nodded, not trusting his voice to Connor’s searching eyes.  There were a lot of stories about the leader of the resistance and now that Alec was face to face with him, he believed most of them.  
  
“What do you know about the X series Transgenics?”  
  
He looked at Derek and his partner gave him a slight nod.  He took a deep breath.  “Nothing more than most I suppose, unless you’re talking about the X-5 series.  Then I suppose you could say I’m an expert.”  
  
“You know the differences in the series?”  
  
“Yeah.  The first three weren’t well conceived.  They mostly resulted in nomlies, sorry, anomalies.  The X-4 series was an experiment in psychic warfare and while the attempts produced different levels of success they were unreliable.  The X-5 series was the most successful of the program.  They were engineered super soldiers, the elite of Manticore’s transgenic army, its officers if you would.  They were transferred to Cyberdyne’s Manticore facility and were killed in a massive attack early on in the war.”  
  
John nodded.  “It was believed they were left locked in their rooms while fire swept through and killed them all.”  
  
Alec nodded, not trusting his voice on this either.  He’d never let himself dwell too much on the  transgenics that they’d left behind, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel the loss of so many of his own kind.  There were other rumors too, a massacre inside the walls, the transgenics trying to fight their way out.  He’d always like the fire one himself, knowing it was the far more likely.  He could almost imagine the heat of it, sitting in his cell with the door locked, waiting for orders that would never come, meditating as the pain flicked into his awareness and he was forced to try to escape.  In his mind’s eye, he always found a way.  In his mind, he knew if he’d still been there, he’d have died with the rest of his kind.   
  
John looked at Derek and then back to Alec.  “Derek said there was something you might be able to help me with, some news about an active X-5.”  
  
He thought about demanding to know what John wanted with one but took a deep breath, searching out Derek’s eyes as he did so.  He took strength from the conviction in Derek’s eyes, and then looked at John Connor, snapping into a perfect salute.  “X5-494 at your service sir.”  
  
“What?”  John Connor was out of his seat but Alec kept his gaze steady, waiting for the other man to prove his instincts wrong.  He wanted to run, wanted to get the hell out of there and never look back, but he wasn’t ready to give up on Derek just yet and if John Connor was the man he believed he was, then he would use Alec to his benefit, not kill him or experiment on him.  
  
“Show him, Alec.”  
  
He turned slowly, telegraphing his moves.  It was always the trickiest time, when people first learned.  They suddenly got jumpy when he moved at normal speed, fearing what he would do next.  When he was facing the wall, he brought his hands up slowly and tugged at the collar of his shirt and jacket, exposing his barcode.  
  
“Serial number 331845739494.  Manticore X5 series.  Special training in undercover ops, infiltration, and espionage.  Designation X-5494.”    
  
“John Connor, meet Alec.”  Derek said, coming up beside him and turning him to face the other man.  
  
John’s eyes were wide and Alec wasn’t sure what to make of his reaction.  It was obvious he’d been looking for an X-5 the same as the machines, but for what purpose?  
  
John held out his hand then, a smile growing on his face.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Alec.”  
  
Alec shook his hand, confusion painting his face even as he returned the gesture.  “It’s an honor.”  John released his hand and took a step back, leaning against his desk.  Alec didn’t move but took comfort from Derek standing beside him.  “If you don’t mind my asking, what do you need me for?  Not that I’m not grateful for the chance to serve and yadda yadda yadda,” Alec said with a roll of his eyes, “but you seem to have something planned and I’ve spent most of my life running from what other people have planned for me.  At this point, I can only hope what you have in mind  is better than what the machines had planned for me.”

  
John frowned, but then no one liked to be compared to metal.  That sometimes humans were worse than the machines didn’t matter.  John looked over at Derek.  “And this is the man-“  
  
“Yeah, it is.”  Derek said, a small smile gracing his lips.   
  
John shook his head as he looked back at Alec.   “In time Alec.  First, tell me how it is you weren’t in that fire that destroyed the other Transgenics.”  
  
“Four days before Judgment Day I escaped the Manticore facility with eleven others.  We separated and I haven’t seen them since.”  
  
“How long were you at that location?”  
  
“Four years.”  
  
John sighed, looking at Derek.  “He knows the location, but he was just a kid, Derek.”  
  
He didn’t know what they were talking about but he knew the falseness of the words.  “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but if it’s questions about the facility I can answer them.  I don’t know what sort of games you were playing at that age, but when I was transferred to the Manticore Cyberdyne building I was a soldier, not a child.”  
  
John looked at him, eyes older than his years, and he wondered if the rumors really were true, that he’d trained all his life for Judgment Day, even before it had happened, his mother teaching him and preparing him until he was the man that stood before him.  
  
“That’s what they say, that the training is immediate, but it’s one thing to see it and one thing to hear it,” John answered.  He looked over at Derek then, shaking his head.  “I don’t know about this, Derek.”  
  
Derek’s jaw clenched and Alec tensed.  John seemed to notice because his eyes darted between them before Derek raised his head slightly.  “I do, John.  Isn’t that enough anymore?”  
  
There was more to the situation than Alec knew and he didn’t dare comment now.   
  
Derek took a step forward and Alec moved closer to his back, keeping guard just in case.  “How much more of my blood do I need to spill?”  
  
John stilled at the words and Alec’s hands clenched white with a need to defend Derek.  “Alright.  It’s your call, Derek.  If you think we can trust him, then do it.”  
  
“At sundown, we’ll head out,” Derek didn’t wait for John to respond, but pulled Alec out of the room with him.   
  
They walked through the hallways and Derek took him steadily down the intersecting tunnels.  When he stopped it was at a cavern dug into the side, a piece of fabric hammered into the arch to act as a door.  Derek twitched the covering aside and pushed Alec in.  “Not many people know about the place we’re going tonight, Alec.  Don’t mention it to anyone.  This is the greatest secret John has been hiding and only a handful of people know about it.”  
  
“He doesn’t trust me.”  
  
Derek smiled.  “He doesn’t trust much of anyone these days.”  
  
“Except you?”  
  
“Sometimes, even that’s a stretch,” he said with a sigh, sitting on the edge of a cot.  Alec sat beside him because he didn’t know what else to do.  “You’ll understand when we get there tomorrow, Alec.  Trust me on this.”  
  
He put his hand on Derek’s knee and squeezed softly.  There were no words to convey how much trust he’d given Derek in coming with him, in exposing himself to John Connor and Derek knew it.  He just squeezed and Derek took a deep breath, the two of them allowing that small comfort to calm them.

 

 

 

 

He knew a military base when he saw one.  The emptiness made his skin crawl and he wanted to back the hell out of the all too familiar layout but he pressed forward anyway, allowing Derek to walk him into another series of tests that went against his survival instinct.  Corridor after corridor of empty hallways, abandoned common areas and barracks, and nothing but the sound of their footsteps filled the air.  John Connor led them down to a long stairway and they followed, silently.  Derek continued to look back at him from time to time, but there was something almost hopeful in his eyes and Alec didn’t know how to respond to it.  
  
Instead, he just nodded, thrusting down the need to run.  It wasn’t until John opened the doorway at the bottom of the staircase that he began to hear anything.  John and Derek walked beside him, Derek staring consciously ahead while John began to give Alec surreptitious glances as they went.   
  
They’d left the stronghold of the resistance the night before, travelling east for four hours before making a more southerly route.  It was just the three of them and that spoke more of Connor’s trust in Derek than he knew the other man was capable of acknowledging after their confrontation the day before.  The base was dead though, nothing stirring on the top side as they’d passed through its high walls.  He’d had to push down his reservations to move on but neither man had seemed to notice.  
  
He heard another noise and stopped, bringing his gun out, to defend himself.   
  
“Alec,” Derek shook his head but Alec wasn’t able to relax at just his word.  
  
“There are more than just a few people here,” Alec said softly.  
  
John nodded.  “Yes there are, and they’re waiting for you.”  
  
He looked at Derek then lowered his gun.  In for a penny and all that.  If Derek and John were selling him out to something then it was already too late.  “We shouldn’t keep them waiting then,” he said, stepping back in between the two men.  
  
He could see John look past him to Derek and then John nodded, looking forward as he began to talk.  “We got word that there was a device, somewhere in the Cyberdyne system that could destroy Skynet.  It took a lot of work to find out what it was, if it was real of just some fabrication of the greys to bring us to them, but we found out it was real.  The information you brought in last night was the location.”  
  
“Manticore.”  
  
John nodded.  “The upper levels of that facility were torn apart but the lower levels weren’t.  It was back in the beginning when all they were doing were smash and grabs.  If they’d known then we could have stopped everything, but they didn’t.  When Skynet took the facility back no one thought anything of it.  Now, we know why.”  
  
“And you have a living survivor who was inside it,” Alec said, connecting the dots to his own importance.  
  
“More than that.”  He pushed through a large set of doors and they were in a large training room.  Alec stopped in his tracks because he knew what he was seeing even if he didn’t understand it.  John and Derek stopped with him, the leader continued in his ear.  “Everyone thought they were destroyed but we found them, unable to do anything more than train and await orders.  After Judgment Day it seems like they got rid of anyone that had learned how to think independently, or they just learned how to make them like this.”  
  
“X-6 series,” he said, unsure if his voice was as calm as he’d have liked it to be.  “They were younger, just coming into the training grounds when we left.  They were like us, only made to be dependent on the X-5s.  They were the soldiers to the X-5 officers.”  
  
“That’s what we thought,” Derek answered.  “That’s the thing.  We have an army of trained soldiers and they’ll keep in line just fine and stay on top of their regiment, but they do not take orders from anyone else.  They will not be deployed.”  
  
Alec shook his head.  “Without an X-5.”  
  
“That’s our thoughts.”  
  
He took a deep breath and looked at the men and women training around him.  He estimated close to a hundred soldiers.  “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”  
  
Alec let out a sharp whistle and the main arena came to a dead halt.  “Form up!”  
  
He didn’t know if they recognized one of their own by some genetic marker Manticore had given them or if it was just the manner in which he held himself, upright and strong in his conviction that he’d been trained, raised, born to do this, but they were in formation faster than any human army ever could be.  
  
He looked over at John and Derek and could see that even that was beyond their expectations.  He came up to the first soldier and stopped.  “Designation?”  
  
“John, sir.”  
  
“Designation soldier,” he barked it loud and clear, knowing that the others would take it to heart.  They were a unit, bred to be a unit and they would all feel the shame and the triumphs as one.  
  
“X6-372.”  
  
“What is your mission?”  
  
“We await your orders sir.”  
  
“At ease.” The whole room moved as one and he nodded at the military efficiency they’d managed to keep.  “I am here to oversee the next portion of your training.  We are in the last stage of a military operation that will require each and every one of you at your top efficiency.  I will be reviewing your performance with your lieutenants and you will receive merits and demerits based on those reports.  When the time is right, we will join the battle and you will become the most heralded soldiers in history.”

They were too well trained to make a noise at that admission, but he could see it in their eyes, see the feeling of purpose that they had long been void of.  He felt it himself.   
  
“Lieutenants will see me with reviews at 08:00 tomorrow.  Until then, company dismissed.”  
  
He didn’t look back to see what they did or said and he was grateful that both John and Derek were acting as if they’d expected this all along.  
  
It wasn’t until they were in the military conference room that John took a heavy seat and smiled over at Derek.  “We hoped, we just didn’t know.”  
  
Alec looked at them darkly and shook his head.  “Now you do.  And now you want to throw these children at Skynet.”  
  
“You said they weren’t children, Alec.  They’re soldiers and if we can do this, if we can get this one building, we can win this war.”  
  
Alec nodded, but he knew this was exactly what they were all there for.  He knew that if he’d been called into battle by his superiors at that age, he’d have been proud to do what they wanted.  If Manticore had been true to its original training instead of handing them over to the machines to torture, he would still be that man.  
  
He nodded at John and Derek.  “Alright.  I’m your man.  But I won’t let them be metal fodder.  I won’t be left out of the planning to send them against an enemy they can’t hope to defeat.”  
  
John nodded.  “You’re the expert, Alec.  You lead the way.”  
  
Derek was smiling at him like there was no tomorrow, and Alec couldn’t help but return it.  
  
He wasn’t sure what the future held, but there would be a future, he was sure of that for the first time in years.  He had an army at his back and he had Derek at his side, strong and warm and willing to fight.  
  
The future was a blur, something intangible and cold, but for the first time since he’d walked through Cyberdyne’s Manticore facility, he felt hope that what was to come might some day lead them all to freedom.   


  
  
It took five days to assess the condition of the troops, to watch them train and talk to the lieutenants about the mindset of the transgenics.  Everything seemed to be going well and Alec was impressed with the way John Connor’s people had found a way to keep the soldiers training even as they waited for an X-5 to show up with their orders.  
  
There were still weak spots that could be exploited, holes in their training because no one understood how far to push the X series soldiers.  That was about espionage and better stamina and resistance though and Alec knew exactly what he was throwing his people into.  Those things would have to wait.  They’d take care of the living once it was all over.    
  
Derek pushed into the room and Alec looked back at the latest batch of reports.  He’d given them an all out push the day before, literally working them until each and every one dropped in exhaustion.  He knew how far to push, he knew exactly what to expect of them now.  Not only that, but he’d gotten them to recognize the human soldiers and their rank so they knew who to take their orders from as well.  That seemed to be harder and he wasn’t sure it would work long term, but so long as the resistance officers just backed up his orders it would hold.  
  
“Are they ready?”  
  
There was no preamble and as much as Alec would have liked to think after being in close quarters with each other that Derek had missed his company, it was always business first.  They were soldiers and it had to be so he didn’t begrudge Derek that.  He did hope for something more later though.  
  
“Yeah.  If I had another year I could make them into perfect soldiers, but we don’t have a year and nothing I can teach them will make much of a difference going up against the machines.”  
  
“John is getting everything in place.”  
  
“I need to let them know what they’re fighting against.  Give me a week to brief them, to show them how to kill a terminator.”  
  
“You can do that?”  
  
Alec nodded as he stood up from behind the desk and walked to the front of it, leaning back.  “Their heads will snap off like anything else will.”  He didn’t say how dangerous it was, or how foolish it was to try to take one out if there were others around to pick you off for trying.  He didn’t have to mention the way metal fingers tore into flesh and broke bones.   
  
“You’ve got three days.  John is ready to move now.  He thinks Skynet is planning something and he wants it done now.”  
  
Alec nodded.  It was enough.  Another week of playing babysitter to a bunch of X-6s would probably have driven him crazy anyway.  “You heading back to John now?  Or did you need to inspect the troops for him?”  
  
Derek took a step closer until he was standing in the vee of Alec’s legs.  “Trying to get rid of me Alec?”  
  
“No sir, why would I do that, sir?”  He snapped the words out like a good little soldier, but there was a smirk on his face that had Derek smiling in return.  
  
“I’ve got your six, Alec.  Three days and we have a shot at taking out the machines for good.  Gonna be right there at your side until this is done.”  
  
Alec didn’t say anything, but as Derek leaned closer, he let one hand slide up to the back of the other man’s neck and closed the distance.  There was nothing soft or tentative about the kiss, as Derek pressed his body into Alec, trapping him against the desk.  Alec moaned into his mouth, wanting, needing to take this comfort, to find strength in his partner.  Derek’s hands pulled at Alec’s shirt and their lips parted only long enough for his shirt to be yanked over his head.   
  
“Alec…” his name was barely a whisper as Derek’s hands travelled over his chest before reaching for his belt.  Alec crushed their lips together once more as he heard his zipper being lowered.  Then his pants were pushed down and Alec was being spun around, Derek pressing against his back.  
  
Derek’s lips traced a path across his shoulders while his hands were busy taking care of his own pants.  Alec closed his eyes as he felt Derek push forward then, felt the heat of his skin against him.   
  
Derek pressed against his opening and Alec was pushing back, wanting him with something that bordered on obsession.   
  
“You can take it, can’t you?”  Derek whispered into his ear.  
  
“Yeah, do it.”  
  
Derek’s hands gripped his hips and then he was pushing into Alec’s body.  He bit back the pain and dropped his head forward, pressing his hands onto the desk to give him better leverage.  Derek stopped moving, let his head rest against Alec’s shoulder for a minute then let his lips caress the back of his neck, his tongue lightly playing against the barcode that Alec no longer had to hide.  
  
He moaned at the touch and then Derek was pulling back and slamming into him.  He lost thought of everything else then, focused on the way Derek felt inside him, around him, weighing him down and grounding him.   
  
Callused fingers wrapped around his cock and he pushed up into them, needing release.  It didn’t take long and as he shot white across Derek’s hand, he felt his lover’s hips stutter to a halt, following him over that edge.  
  
They cleaned up quickly but as Alec pulled his shirt back on, Derek stepped up behind him, pressing his lips to his barcode once more.  Alec shivered slightly at the touch and turned to find Derek smiling at him.  
  
“You just came for the entertainment, admit it,” Alec said, trying to deflect the moment.  
  
Derek pulled him closer, not letting him back away.  “Maybe.  Maybe I don’t mind having someone warm and strong to keep me company at night.”  
  
“So I’m your personal heating blanket?”  
  
“Something like that.”  
  
There was a knock at the door then and Alec pulled away to let the lieutenants in.  They had work to do after all.

 

 

 

  
  
He still wasn’t sure how they’d managed to get the gate down so fast, but that wasn’t Alec’s concern.  John had promised Derek the gates would fall and they had.  It was their turn now.   
  
There was no dramatic yelling of orders or chaotic sprints through the opening, his people were too well trained for that.  A single nod to the lieutenant sent a wave of hand signals down the line and the opening volley was begun, the X-6s moving at their top speed to gain the gates and make sure they stayed open.  
  
Derek was with John.  As much as the other man had wanted to be at Alec’s side, he wasn’t transgenic and he couldn’t keep up with their speeds.  So Alec rushed with the last of his men to get inside the walls of the place he might once have called home.

  
He could hear the fighting inside the complex but the main courtyard was cleared already.   He’d kept the best of the X-6s with him and they began moving lower into the complex.  Gun fire rang out around them and they ignored the threat of the machines while they worked down to the lowest level where the technological equipment was made and stored.  
  
He moved the men along as quick as he could, knowing that every minute they took was more of their men dying.  The level wasn’t secured separately from the rest of the facility so the worst of their obstacles were past.  Alec left a contingency at the top of the stairs then took the rest down the last leg of their journey.  
  
It was an old server, something that Skynet wouldn’t see as a threat, anymore than humans had seen it as a threat back in the day.  It was controllable though, reprogrammable and that was all they needed, a little technology that could help turn back the tide of their war.  
  
“378!  It’s your turn,” Alec shouted to the young man that was at the top of his unit, tech savvy in ways that Alec himself wasn’t.  He nodded in passing as he dropped to the floor, his fingers ripping open the panel as another X squatted beside him, pulling out the necessary transfer data.  
  
The X stared up at Alec for a split second and that was all it took for Alec to dive.  A blast took the woman through the chest and 378 was scrambling to grab the data before it could be lost.  
  
Alec was rolling as he found cover, watching as three other X-6s went down before realizing the terminator was coming up on them.  It was the problem with training with no field experience.  They could learn what to do, but there was always the shock to take into account, something they couldn’t know or deal with until they’d been put to the test.  Those that survived passed.  
  
“Get that data moving!”  Alec screamed at the others.  
  
He brought his weapon to bear on the terminator as its attention was drawn away from 384.  He felt the others moving around him, saw when 384 got back up and was able to try again and smiled at the metal as he opened fire.   
  
The guns had little effect on the machine but Alec was already aware of that.  He was just glad it was pure metal and not one of the ones that looked human.  It wasn’t that they looked human that was the problem.  All that flesh and blood made it harder to rip the neural synaptic relays from the main CPU.   
  
He was about to call for a cease fire on the metal when one of the small HK units came flying through the doorway.   
  
“Perfect,” Alec muttered as he opened up on the new attacker.  They were easier to take down, but lethal all the same.  He looked back at the lieutenant who had followed him down and yelled, “Take care of that thing.  I’ll handle the T.”   
  
The other X acknowledged the order then pulled his men back.  The HK followed their movement while the terminator focused on the group of Xs around 384.  It was raising its weapon to fire again when Alec broke into a run and launched himself at its outstretched weapon.  The gun went flying but as Alec struggled to pull back, the cyborg caught a hold of his arm, its grip crushing.  He screamed through the pain but fired with his other hand, trying to hit something in the arm that would release him.   
  
The grip eased slightly as Alec pulled free, feeling skin rip as he did so.  He backed out of the terminator’s immediate grasp and then backpedaled away from the others.  It was easier to do this from behind, to sneak up on them but he didn’t have that option.  His arm hurt like hell and he knew he was loosing blood too fast.  He needed to end it quick or the thing was going to end him.   
  
“Almost there!”  He heard 384 yell from the other side of the machine.   
  
The metal stopped to look back at the others, processing the data their yell had generated and Alec took advantage of the momentary distraction.  He hurled himself at the machine as fast as he could, his hand gripping the machine under the jaw and at the back of the metal skull.  He wasn’t in a position to pull it off, but he had the right angle so he pushed with all his strength.  He could feel the joints bending, the spray of liquid as the coolant and oils that worked within the machine began to seep out of their too stretched tubing.  He was too close for the terminator to do much, its eyes no longer functioning in a way that would let it see clearly enough for a death blow so its fingers wrapped into the flesh of his hip, ripping and tearing in an effort to stop him.

  
He was screaming from the pain but then with one last pop the head disconnected from the synapses and the metal was dead.  Alec pushed it away with one last scream as the hands let go of him.  
  
He fell to his knees and managed to push himself back against the wall as he heard the sound of the others, still fighting the HK.  “Status, 384?”  He demanded.  
  
“Now, sir!”  
  
Alec heard the hum of the server as it uploaded the new information, data transferring into the other units.  It only took a moment for the crash of the HK and then Alec heard the sound of men and women yelling their triumph around him.  
  
He took a deep breath, wondered if Derek was still alive up there somewhere, and let the wash of pain flood him for a moment.  He knew there were hands on him, his unit probably trying to stop the bleeding, but he was too tired to listen to anything they tried to say.  


 

 

 

“Alec!”  
  
The voice brought him out of his stupor and then he knew where he was, lying on a bunk in a room just like he’d once lived.  “No, got out,” he said, trying to remember how got back there when he’d planned so hard to escape.  
  
“Relax, Alec.  We’re gonna take care of you, then we’ll be taking the first ride out of here.”  
  
“Derek?”  
  
The other man smiled at him, something warm and confident, something content almost.  “Yeah.  It worked.  John’s still trying to contact the other resistance cells to see how far spread the transmission went out, but so far it seems to be everything within a 100 mile radius.  Now, we just need to get this program out to the others and make sure we take everything down before it can reboot and infect the others again.”  
  
“It really worked?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Let’s get the hell out of here.”  
  
“Just waiting for the medics to patch you up first.  Unless you’re got plans tonight you need to get back for?”  
  
Alec shook his head because while Derek was teasing and light hearted, the memory of the facility, the thought of what they’d endured, how many of his kind had died inside, it was too much.  “I lived here, Derek.  I can’t… I need to get out.”  
  
Derek looked at him for a minute then nodded.  “Alright.  Yeah, I’ll take care of it.  Sleep for a while Alec.  Your men did good.  They’re still out here, guarding you.  You’ll be safe until I get back.”  
  
He closed his eyes then, trusting Derek to see to it.  
  
  
  
  
Two days later Alec walked around the walls of the base they were now referring to as Transgenic Central.    A handful had come out of the woodworks after word got around that an army of X-6s were responsible for the take over of the former Cyberdyne Manticore buildings.  Alec didn’t trust them all yet, but they were already beginning the training and profiling that would show how far they’d come from their days in Manticore.  
  
“You did good.”  
  
Alec didn’t turn around as he looked out, watching the sun as it began to sink further in the sky.  He felt someone crowding behind him and closed his eyes at the press of lips against his barcode.   
  
“Heard you didn’t do so bad yourself,” he replied.  As much as he wanted to throttle the man for it, Derek had a newly acquired bullet hole in one leg where he’d pushed John Connor out of the way of a terminator’s path.  The stories around the base said he’d managed to pull his guns out and hit a flying HK as he fell.  The metal had crashed into its own kind, killing itself and the terminator before they could get to John and the men.   
  
“A lot of men lost,” Derek said with a shrug.  
  
“A lot of men saved if this works,” Alec looked over his shoulder.  “You included.”  
  
“Feels like I’m getting too old for this anymore.” He patted his leg above the dressing and sighed.  “One of these days I’m not gonna make it.”  
  
“Guess we should just retire then.”  
  
“Retire?”  Derek asked with a laugh.  
  
“Well, I have heard that they need some men at TC, good men who can train soldiers.”  
  
“Thought they already had someone for that.”  
  
Alec smiled as Derek pulled back, then turned, resting his back on the wall that Alec was looking out over.  “Yeah, but he’s only one transgenic.  He could use a good man at his side, someone he can trust.”  
  
“John seems to agree with you.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
Derek nodded.  “Told me if I wanted, I could stay here.”  
  
“So you’re going to stay here, train soldiers, and get bored out of your mind?”  
  
Derek laughed as he reached out, pulling Alec close.  “I don’t see myself being bored with you around.”  
  
“You don’t think you’ll miss all the action?”  
  
“With you around Alec, I don’t think I’ll miss that much action at all.”       
  
Alec smiled as Derek’s lips pressed into his, wondering how he’d managed to get Derek to stay by his side through it all.  He never expected it.  Then again, he’d never expected to see the end of the war, a general of his own army of transgenics, listening to John Connor make another broadcast to the human race, telling them they were gonna make it.   
  
Derek’s fingers brushed the back of Alec’s neck, his skin sensitive under the barcode and he pulled his partner closer.  His partner, his lover, the man who’d kept this word, who’d asked Alec to go back into his own personal hell and gone with him to make sure his steps didn’t falter.  
  
Derek pulled back, enough to rest his forehead against Alec’s, his breath warm and soft against his lips.  “You think it’s really over?”  He asked.  
  
Alec didn’t want to moment to end and he let his lips trace along Derek’s cheek.  “Keeper of souls,” he said softly.

Derek pulled back, eyes questioning.   
  
Alec smiled.  “Some men are destined to lead while other men are destined to follow.  Those that know how to fight, will.  We’ll fight to the last man until the machines are gone.” he looked out into the sky, trying to capture his thoughts in a way that would make sense.  “Some men though, are made to remember so we don’t forget everything we had to sacrifice to get there.  You’re a keeper of souls, Derek.  We’ll make sure this is over, because you help us remember what we’re fighting for.”  
  
Derek shook his head, a small smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.  “I’m just a man Alec.  Only thing I’m trying to keep hold of these days is you.”  
  
Alec pulled him in, pressed their lips together in a hungry kiss.  “You keep my soul.  You keep me on the right path and where I go, my army goes.”  
  
Derek‘s chest pushed Alec back into the wall and there was so much more than just heat and desire in his eyes.  It was everything Alec wanted and everything he’d never thought he’d find.  
  
“I’ll keep you.”  
  
“Keep me,” He repeated, needing to say the words one last time.  “Keep me Derek, and we’ll find a way to save the whole damned world.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is my entry for the apocabigbang and it was so much fun to work on! Not only was it a chance for me to explore the Alec/Derek relationship (which i've wanted to do since I wrote Ink) but it also gave me the chance to work with an amazing artists! Serious love goes out to davincis_girl!! See the art... give love :P See her lovely work here: [ Art Post](http://davincis-girl.livejournal.com/116061.html)


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